The roof route narrows onto a rusted freight gantry above dark rail yards. Niko stays close as Match leads, one hand covering the shard while the police grid recedes behind rain and steel.
Niko
Iris hid pieces of our history from both of us. I knew she was protecting something, but not that the shard would point back to her.
Niko slows at the gantry’s midpoint. Below, freight lines vanish into the blackout, their signal lamps blinking like distant machine eyes.
Niko
I trust you because you had every chance to take the shard and run. Instead, you kept asking the questions that made running harder.
He looks toward Match, rain tracing the edge of his cybernetic eye. The admission sounds measured, but the hand over the shard has tightened.
Niko
Station Twelve will demand proof of custody, not just the shard. Iris may have built the vault to recognize my family, or to expose it.
Ahead, the gantry joins a maintenance roof overlooking the sealed rail terminal. Niko waits beside the corroded junction, leaving the next question and the route forward to Match.
“Do we trust Iris?”
FAILURE (Fair Persuasion, rolled -1)
Match
Do we trust Iris?
Match keeps Niko moving across the maintenance roof, but the question slows their pace. Rain ticks against the terminal housings as the sealed station looms ahead.
Niko
I want to. But Iris warned us not to transmit the shard, then sent us to a vault that may identify my family. That is not trust. That is a gamble.
Niko stops at the junction where the gantry meets the roof. His grip shifts from the shard to a maintenance port set into the terminal wall, its old indicator still faintly alive.
Niko
There is another option. We reach the archive without opening the shard, then use its custody check to learn whether Iris built a trap or left us a way to verify her.
The port accepts a maintenance key sequence from the roof system and returns one usable fragment: VAULT ACCESS REQUIRES WITNESS PAIR. Niko looks from the message to Match.
Niko
Whatever Iris planned, it cannot be opened by me alone. We can test the vault’s rules before trusting her story.
Verify whether Iris’s vault is trustworthy
Quest Complete
Secure the black data shard
Skill Upgrade: Persuasion Fair→Good